To properly understand the background of this section, one must consider the topic of the preceding chapter. Chapter ten’s emphasis was idolatry and their testimony outside of the church. This section’s topic is the people’s conduct within the context of worship in church. Paul weaves three topics within his argument: creation order as applied to the relationship between men and women, proper head coverage during worship, and the distinction between the sexes.
One primary term is “head.” This term usually refers to a superior. It may also refer to a source or origin.
A key to the choice resides in Paul’s use of this word in verse three. One must remember that the context is worship, so Paul is not speaking of pagans. Here, Paul declares three entities as the head of another. First, Christ is the head of every man, ruling out both source and origin. This statement is unlikely to point to creation since God created humanity, not just males. The same applies to the third pair, God/Christ. Both persons are eternal and uncreated, so source and origin are not possibilities.
While one might argue that God is the source/origin of Christ’s human body, the same does not apply to Christ the person. These two items negate the possibility of these choices. The remaining choice, preeminence, is likely. Preeminence did not entail subjection but subordination. Jesus described His subordination to the Father (John 5:16–30) and later stated that “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). In verse three, the Roman leadership term primus inter pares shows what this likely entails concerning the man/woman pair. Usually, this title was an honorary term for someone given honor within a group of otherwise equals. This title concerns a vertical rather than horizontal line of command. Once one dispenses with the Westernized notion of authority, Paul’s argument becomes evident. This term agrees with the creation order as God created man and woman as equals in His sight but gives preeminence to man due to his position as first created and recipient of His commands and created woman as the appropriate helper beside man.
With the image of the head established, Paul gets to his next point: the proper attitude and attire for worship. Concerning Corinth or any other Roman colony, one must remember that they copied Roman culture. It also shows that the problem centers on Greco-Roman ideals concerning worship and public propriety concerning head coverings. Since man is the first in order of creation, he begins with him (v. 4). Men and women who gave an offering or sacrifice at pagan temples wore head coverings. In the context of prayer and prophesying, Paul states that the man must not have a covering, or he disgraces/shames his head (Christ), while the opposite applies to the woman. The meaning of “shame” comes from Paul’s Israelite background and is not drastically different from that of the Greco-Roman world, where honor and shame were barometers of their social standing. Man and woman are the glory of God. The man must not cover lest he appear as the pagans toward their gods. The woman’s hair is her glory (15); therefore, the covering for the woman is so that the glory is God’s through their devotion and worship of Him.
The uncovered woman (5) brings shame to her head, the man. Paul states this is the same shame assigned to the woman with a shaved head (5–6). A shaved head was a shame no matter where a woman was, especially in public. Shaved hair was associated with infidelity, for the husband of an adulterous wife cuts her hair, strips her, and banishes her from the house. In equating the shame of the adultress with the shame of having no head covering, Paul emphasizes the gravity of the situation. A respectable woman had a covering in public. For the Christian woman, a head covering kept the woman from being a distraction in worship service. Worship was not an occasion for the woman to be an object of attraction to men or be “sized up” by them. No decent woman would dress to attract men while leading worship. It would constitute a public shame of her head, the man. Paul’s statement about a shaved head and shame is illustrative of the shame a woman feels and the shame that comes to her man. A secondary application of this was that their Christian witness to the predominately Roman community at Corinth would be damaged. If their God was so different, why did men cover themselves as others did in the idol’s temple? Some in Corinth were still involved in idol temples. They ate the food sacrificed to idols sold in the marketplace. Not only would covering the head bring shame to Christ by hiding His reflected glory, but it would further shame by identifying Christianity with emperor worship and idols.
After reiterating the “head” order from verse three (cp. 7) and the dependence of woman’s existence on God’s creation (8–9), Paul states that the woman must have a “symbol” of authority on her head because of the angels (10) of the many views on this subject. The one most likely is that the angels participate in worship and function as guardians of its order. Because they were guardians of the creation order, it is reasonable to assume that they would take offense at a practice that violates this order. The “symbol” on their head was their covering. They had the control of what they wore. This condition was in addition to the reason for being created as the counterpart to the man. Paul was not inferring that angels were the counterpart of God. He links his argument to the following verses, which denote the unity and interdependence of the parts of humanity to each other, for they were one in Christ.
If the angels closest to the throne covered themselves in the sight of the Holy One, should not women have shown the same as a witness to them? Women and men were not angels, but they were participants with them in the worship of God. The covering symbolized her God-given place in the order of worship. This position differed significantly from that of the woman in Roman society. In Roman society, the woman’s clothing denoted their husband’s status. Paul stresses that the regulation for head coverings was not for the man’s status but to symbolize the woman’s authority to act according to God’s creation order while worshipping or prophesying.
After describing the interdependencies of man and woman (11–12), Paul asks his audience if it is proper for a woman to pray with an uncovered head. After hearing his argument, the obvious answer is no. He turns again to the man and asks if the long hair on them is a disgrace. He says that such a situation is against nature. Nature is God’s ordering of the world by His command. God created gender distinctions, not humans or their institutions. Even Roman men typically kept their hair short. Epictetus, a stoic philosopher, complains in Discourse 3:1 against men who adorn themselves like women as a “terrible sight.” It is reasonable that Paul viewed long hair as promoting sexual ambiguity and moral perversion. Another philosopher, Seneca, connects Corinth with this custom and makes a similar point on men with long hair in his Moral Letters. The answer to Paul’s question is yes, it is a disgrace. The opposite is true for the woman because her long hair is her covering (15).
Paul concludes by asserting the validity of his argument against those who are contentious. Only contentious persons would disagree with his argument. Such people have marginalized themselves. According to his conclusion, those wishing to find victory in a stance other than Paul’s must change or find themselves out of step with the teachings of Christ.
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